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Eric, you know and I know that these are not the news sources being talked about. Not very many people get their news from these sources. Almost all of the network newscasts (NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS, MSNBC) basically ignored this story until recently, the same networks who are all over the story when an abortion doctor is gunned down or if a senator says something stupid about rape.

"Cover-up" is kind of a diversion from what is actually being alleged. It's similar to saying that the mainstream media does not lean left because you can't show they are conspiring to do so. As if they need to. The main argument is not that there was some grand effort to hide this.

Yes, I know some conservative outlets ignored this story, but the main networks did so studiously and had to be dragged into looking at it. The Washington Post guy said he didn't even know about it.

What makes anyone think that the MSM is liberal? The fact that they adore Obama? What makes anyone think Obama is liberal? The mainstream press adores power and will rarely do anything that risks losing access to that power. This was a story of gross negligence of Philadelphia authorities, but few Philadelphia reporters were wiling to lose access to those reporters by making big waves about this story. After all, it was just a bunch of poor and immigrant women, so who cares?

MCN, her response is on-task because it shows that if we're getting radio silence from the MSM on this case, it's not because of a liberal bias---because the actual left-wing sites and blogs were covering it heavily. There's all *sorts* of stuff that the MSM covers inadequately, and those of us on the left complain about it pretty regularly; so it's not even remotely clear why poor coverage on a case is evidence of bias to the left, especially if it's on a case that the left has talked about extensively and wouldn't mind a larger soapbox for.

Dienne -- of course the media leans left -- not necessarily the owners, but certain many, many, many of the editors and reporters. Their leanings color what stories are covered, and how, what stories are emphasized. The Gosnell case went against the pro-choice mindset that the vast majority of reporters and editors have. Add to that the horrifying details, and it wasn't covered. Had this been on the other side of the aisle, so to speak, the coverage would have been wall-to-wall.

--also -- in looking at just the story EZ has posted here, it appears the "defense" is, "well, we covered it when he was charged!" Yesterday's news, people. It's the trial that's going on now, not the charges.

More nonsense - if "The Gosnell case went against the pro-choice mindset" then it wouldn't have been covered extensively in explicitly pro-choice media. Which of course it was, as demonstrated by the links above.

Here's the truth: this horrible story is evidence in support of the pro-choice position. Pro-choicers have been warning for years that if access to safe, legal abortions was restricted, women would turn to unsafe and illegal ones. That's exactly what happened here. The horrors of Gosnell's charnel house will be replicated in every state in this country if anti-choice liars get their way.

Echo the comments before. Here is how the columnist Johnathon Capehart of the Waqshinton Post explains away the MSM silence on this story:

" Many critics claim that there has been silence on the Gosnell case from the national media because of the abortion issue. I (Capehart) side with The Post’s executive editor Martin Baron on this. “I wish I could be conscious of all stories everywhere,” he told The Post’s Paul Farhi yesterday, “but I can’t be. Nor can any of us.” Capehart goes on

Ultimately, the conspiracy of silence on Gosnell lies not with the press. It lies with the workers at the clinic who allegedly participated in barbarous acts or allegedly watched them happen and said nothing. It lies with members of the community who knew about the alleged deplorable activity and conditions at “Women’s Medical Society” and said nothing. And it lies with Philadelphia and Pennsylvania officials who fielded numerous credible complaints about Gosnell and did nothing.

How pathetic, One other comment, it seems the filfth and health violations are always highlihted, if what had happened there had occurred in a sanitary well lit clinic would it ever have been stopped? Would kermit Gosnell aka "Jack the Snipper" still be practicing murder on a daily basis?

Yeah, the media owners have so little say about what their reporters and editors cover or how they cover it.

"The Gosnell case went against the pro-choice mindset that the vast majority of reporters and editors have."

No, it didn't go against a "pro-choice mindset" (setting aside the very dubious claim that the "vast majority" of reporters and editors have such mindset). It was a perfect example of the exploitation and horror that happens when women can't obtain safe, legal abortions, which is why the actual liberal media (The Nation, Slate, Salon et al.) covered it.

Gutting government agencies responsible for following up on complaints and enforcing regulations is a standard part of conservative governance. It was conservative policies and politicians that let Gosnell flourish for so long.

Ah, I see the "coverup" nuts are already here making the case that there was no coverup already. Just that THEIR media didn't cover it. OK then. And then MCN makes a sexist comment. Par for the course today, I see.

I think Taxpayer's got it right. This isn't an argument against regulated, legal abortion but rather a glimpse into the future of illegal, underground abortions that would occur should the safe kind get legislated away. Or perhaps it's a glimpse back into our own past of illegal and unsafe abortion practices.

I mean, does anyone think that abortion is going to stop happening if it's illegal? It's just going to get more dangerous and gruesome.

@Taxpayer: what are you talking about? Gosnell’s clinic was inspected sporadically under Pro life Dem, Governor Bob Casey. and each time serious problems were found. 1989,1992,1993 . Under Tom ridge pro choice republican inspections ended in fact from 1993 t0 2010 none were done. Nothing was done. , Complaints were being made at that time by Feminists that increased inspections and regulations were an impediment to accessing abortion.

Amada Marcotte's excuse:. It wasn’t reasonable to expect there to be a lot of coverage of this story at this time. Journalism, nas the attackers know, is an industry that runs on newness. There’s no real developments in Gosnell case.

Conservatives miight want to check this link that shows MSNBC and CNN outperformed Fox (CNN by a wide margin) in reporting on the Gosnell case. This appears to be evidence that CNN (typically listed as MSM) was on the case for than Fox. Now what do you all have to say about this evidence?

Rage, Dienne? I'm bemused and amused by the left's posts that try to turn this into a "safe and legal" argument and about the horrors of "back-alley abortions" when we really have an abortionist killing babies.

This weren't back alley abortions and child murders. This killer was operating in plain sight.

Do you and people like Finn and Taxpayer get that? Do you?

Taxpayer, you remark about conservatives making themselves into victims is total BS. And you know it. You and Finn should go have coffee together sometime.

Rage? You people are unbelievable. I'm laughing my a$$ off, this is so entertaining.

I'm not sure why you think that showing that inspections were done under a Democrat and not done under a Republican supports your point. That's my argument! To borrow a page from the gun debate - we don't need new regulations that will burden legitimate abortion providers until we enforce those already on the books. In other words, if you outlaw abortions, only outlaws will provide them.

And Marcotte's point is right: There was a flurry of coverage when charges were filed, including by sources like CNN and the New York Times, and then a lull in coverage as the gag order was in place, preventing the lawyers from sharing new information, and then another flurry of coverage, including by sources like CNN and the New York Times, when the trial started and new information came out. Bog-standard and appropriate media coverage.

@Dienne and taxpayer> what was at work here was pro choice gender politics period,

From 1993 on, Gosnell went completely uninspected. The grand jury says the health department "decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. … With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions." Casey was pro-life; Ridge was pro-choice. The department's senior counsel, in his testimony before the grand jury,

"described a meeting of high-level government officials in 1999 at which a decision was made not to accept a recommendation to reinstitute regular inspections of abortion clinics. The reasoning, [the witness] recalled, was: "there was a concern that if they did routine inspections, that they may find a lot of these facilities didn't meet [the standards for getting patients out by stretcher or wheelchair in an emergency], and then there would be less abortion facilities, less access to women to have an abortion.

It's the pro choice side who is responsible for this horror.. Tell me they had no input in this policy., Safe, legal, rare, Forgot, rare was dropped out of the Democratic platform in 2012.

@Richard Monahan: That's a hoot. Pro-abort politicians not wanting inspections becuase, jeepers, the abortion clinics might not meet standards and there'd be less access for women to have an unsafe abortion.

MCN: Ummm......no, look at EZ's post again. This debate has always been about coverage of the case well before the trial as well as during the trial. Could it be you want to make it about the trial only because there is too much evidence that the left and mainstream media has not ignored the case?

Hmm, didn't know that. Serves me right for not reading the grand jury report to the end. If that's true (and it strikes me that Staloski would have reason to emphasize that it was a policy not to inspect abortion clinics rather than admit that she personally was negligent), it was a terrible mistake to exempt abortion clinics from regular inspections.

Still, I think that it makes more sense to regulate facilities that provide abortions the same way that comparable facilities are regulated, rather than to enact a bunch of regulations that only apply to facilities that provide abortions.

[[As Slate's David Weigel comments in discussing the matter: "Let's just state the obvious: National political reporters are, by and large, socially liberal. We are more likely to know a gay couple than to know someone who owns an 'assault weapon.' We are, generally, pro-choice. Twice, in D.C., I've caused a friend to literally leave a conversation and freeze me out for a day or so because I suggested that the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment made sense. There is a bubble."]]

OK, so MCN, you are focussing on the trial part, but Fox, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, and other conservative outlets were not covering it either, until they discovered that they could make hay by blaming the so-called "liberal media" for not covering it. Then they decided to cover it.

Taxpayer & Dienne have got it right, but there's also the fact that there's a lot of news, and a lot doesn't get covered right away. There was an article in the Tribune today, and I read more about it in this link:

MCN, if clinics were held to the same standards as outpatient surgical centers, that would be fine, but they are often required to achieve standards more hospital-like, which NONE of these other clinics are held to. That being said, this guy is not the kind of "doctor" I would want running MY clinic, so to speak. This is exactly what does happen when all kinds of laws & restrictions on early abortion is made more difficult. So, if you don't want someone like this to be operating, promote affordable, reliable birth control, and/or somehow support the woman (I don't mean necessarily financially) so she doesn't get this desperate, don't just ban things & expect that they will go away, because they won't. Prior to Roe there were abortions, just underground (think "Jane"), or back-alley drs like this guy, or someone just threw themselves down the stairs or there was the good old coat hangers or lye, and it looks like we're headed back that way - and it didn't work before, it won't work again!

Richard Monahan, perhaps you might want to read more of the 2012 Democratic Platform on this topic:

"We also recognize that health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. We strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child by providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including caring adoption programs."

Wow, it's almost like an actual choice.

To correct you, the "safe, legal, rare" was more of a Bill Clinton thing rather than a Democrat Party platform thing. (The phrase doesn't appear in the 2008 platform, it did in 2004, but in 2000 it said merely "Our goal is to make abortion less necessary and more rare, not more difficult and more dangerous.")

And revise my statement to read as your sneering, sexist comment about the press that was covering this case and trial, as opposed to your approved media which was ignoring it until it could try and make political hay out of it. I'm sure they'll be jumping to cover the Sacred Heart case soon, since it also involves medical practice malfeasance. Oh wait, they won't, since it doesn't involve a horror story they can use to advocate against women's health care.

Just because you sneer at Salon, Slate, The Daily Beast and The Nation doesn't mean you get to dismiss them as part of some monolithic "feminist left press" and dismiss the work they did covering this case.

I guess, Mr. Finn, that I just don't give the slightest damn what you think of me or my opinions. And as if you've never made a sneering comment around here. Talk about pious hypocrisy.

Re Frank, I shall say a prayer for your soul tonight, you shivering error-ridden creature, that you may serve the maximum time suffering in purgatory before being granted the Beatific Vision.

ZORN REPLY -- How does one say "Knock it off, all of you!" in Latin? Aside from the insults, I don't think anyone's been adding anything new to this conversation in a while. I'm tempted to close the thread if the insults don't stop.

@LizH: You make a good point. I would think that abortion clinics should be held to same standards as other outpatient clinics performing procedures of a similar nature, and I would tend to a higher standard of care rather than a lower one.

Not a higher, UNNECESSARY standard of care, the SAME standard of care as your average outpatient clinic. That's the problem. Obviously you didn't really read my comments, MCN, or you are being deliberately obtuse.

By the way, "Safe, Legal & RARE" is the "motto" (?) of NARAL. The Dems used it for their platform a while ago but have revised it (to say basically the same thing, just perhaps a little expanded.

Abortion is much less invasive than appendectomies, which are done under general anesthesia.

Particularly in the early stages, abortion is much much safer than appendectomies - 0.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 abortions as compared with 0.8 deaths per 1,000 appendectomies (and that's only counting appendectomies in which the appendix was not perforated). Abortion poses 1/100th the risk of death that an appendectomy does.

Moreover, abortion poses about 1/15th the risk of maternal death that carrying a fetus to term does. Remember that next time somebody starts going on about "abortions of convenience" - they want the government to force pregnant women, by law, to accept a higher risk of death than they would otherwise accept.

@Taxpayer: Abortion tends to be 100% fatal for the unborn baby, unless it's born alive of course, in which case it has a decent chance of having its spinal court snipped, but at any rate a) maternal deaths occur, b) the regs that exist don't seem to be enforced, and c) in PA at least, at least on one point in time government officials deliberately were not enforcing them as they related to abortion clinic.

@Taxpayer> Gutting government agencies responsible for following up on complaints and enforcing regulations is a standard part of conservative governance. It was conservative policies and politicians that let Gosnell flourish for so long.

Your statement is totally wrong. It doesn't contain one speck of truth concerning Gosnell. By going from Casey to Ridge up to 2010 I was trying to show what happened. This had nothing, nothing, to do with conservative policies no matter how much you want to believe it.

So in 2011 we told you everything you needed to know. Who cares if a trial is taking place in 2013.

A note from the Wikipedia article on Peter Singer, one of the world's most respected philosophers, states:

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[26]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

If we're talking about clinic safety regulations, we're not talking about safety to the fetus. As you point out, the embryo/fetus isn't going to survive the procedure anyway, so it there's no reason to keep the clinic safe for the benefit of the embryo or fetus. It matters rather a lot to the pregnant woman, though. And, as I pointed out, abortion is a lot less dangerous to a woman than either an appendectomy or carrying a pregnancy to term. So a facility providing abortions ought to be regulated less strictly than an O.R. that performs appendectomies or a maternity ward.

Which is not to say that such facilities should not be regulated at all. If the Grand Jury's report is accurate, there was a terrible failure on the part of the Ridge administration to conduct adequate inspections of facilities providing abortions. I'd be interested to see how frequently the PA department of health inspected the facilities of doctors who didn't provide abortions during this time period before letting the conservative anti-government crowd completely off the hook on this one, but as far as I can tell, the grand jury report doesn't go into that.

And there are other reasons that conservative policies share the blame for this. For example: if Medicaid covered abortions for early-stage pregnancies, then poor women would not have to scrape together funds over the course of weeks to pay for abortions. That delay leads to later-term abortions, which are very difficult to get. That difficulty allowed a monster like Gosnell to flourish.

Don't blame conservative policies because we oppose giving public funds to poor--or any--women who want to abort their baby. I'm not buying that trash at all. Adoption is always an option and I'm proof of it, having adopted four children.

It's instructive to note how quickly anti-choicers pick up and drop the mask of reasonability. This shows they are not debating in good faith. A few comments up, MCN was pretending to be a reasonable person who was open to compromise with pro-choicers like me:

"I would think that abortion clinics should be held to same standards as other outpatient clinics performing procedures of a similar nature, and I would tend to a higher standard of care rather than a lower one."

"If the same regs apply to abortion clinics as to those in which appendectomies (or such like) are performed, then I'm OK."

When it's pointed out, using actual statistics, that abortions are a heck of a lot safer for women than appendectomies are, notice the shift - now there's no more interest in enforcing reasonable safety regulations for facilities providing abortions.

Now that his argument that abortion-providing facilities should be regulated like operating rooms is in shambles, he wants to pretend that he wants strict regulations on abortion clinics to improve the safety of the embryo or fetus, even though he admitted, and everyone knows, that the embryo or fetus won't survive the procedure. He's also trying to pick fights on language and bring up irrelevancies. The whole point of these tactics is to sow confusion and doubt in his opponents.

But we're not confused or doubtful. We know that people like MCN are not interested in engaging honestly with us - they are interested only in making everyone else do what they say. We're not going to reason them over to the right side, so we're just going to have to defeat them.

Where's the conservative support for these children after they're born? And the mothers who keep them?

Y'all don't give a damn how these children are raised or the state of their living conditions, while you abhor the thought that government should provide assistance. Oh, well, so much easier to blame teachers when these children don't succeed.

@Wendy: Your 7:24 is so off the rails, so beneath you, so utterly wrong-headed, that I can only imagine that you were in a hypoglycemic fit when you wrote it. You're usually more rational.

You also look pretty silly, given mine of 7:01.

I'd adopt more children, but birth mothers--that is, the generous women who have the courage to carry their children to term instead of having them thrown in a dumpster--prefer younger adoptive parents.

No one can tell me that any good would have resulted from the abortion of any of my children. You really have to be inhuman to believe that, not after what I've experienced in raising them. You people who support abortion are so--so callous.

Richard, pay attention. I backed off that "gutting regulation" claim after you presented contrary evidence. I'm not convinced that the evidence is conclusive, but I will admit that the grand jury is better informed than I am. So I'm no longer making the strong claim that conservative gutting of regulatory authorities (which is a real thing that happens in the real world) is responsible in this case. It might be, but I'm not saying for sure that it is. Changing positions when being presented with contrary evidence is the very definition of good faith.

But yes, the Hyde Amendment contributed to the horrors of Gosnell's facility. If those women had access to early abortion in a clean and safe facility, they would not have gone to him for late, unsanitary, and dangerous abortions, and he would not have had the same opportunity to commit murder. Think about that before you try to impose further onerous restrictions on early-term abortions.

No, you misunderstand my point. I'm not saying abortion is the solution; I'm saying women in dire straights worried about bringing a child into the world because they can't properly support them will choose abortion rather than see that child suffer and possibly fail. Yet, should they bear the pain of bearing and giving up their children to adoption as the only other choice? Is that fair? Why do we dismiss, instead of supporting, women who would keep these children? And we do. The criticism against single mothers in poverty has always been intense from society's point of view.

"Y'all don't give a damn how these children are raised or the state of their living conditions, while you abhor the thought that government should provide assistance. Oh, well, so much easier to blame teachers when these children don't succeed." - I think it is conservatives that would love to get these children out of failing gov't schools. I think it is conservatives that are for economic development so these children's parents can have jobs. Conservatives are for enterprise zones - see Jack Kemp. LBJ's Great Society programs have trapped the same families for generations in poverty; time to try something different and a good education would be a start - vouchers!!!

@Taxpayer:he hyde has nothing to do with the horror of the Gosnell clinic.The state allows partial birth abortion if the mother's health is threatened. the Hyde Amendment was not the reason the Gosnell clinic operated 17 years without an inspection. that falls squarely on the State of Pa. and the people who operated the clinic. Why not blame the mother for failing to take birth control or the father for failing to wear a condom. That makes about as much sense as your argument.

Sorry but I have given you solid facts on what happened and why it happened at Gosnall and you still want to blame conservative policy, What you have at Gosnell was the feminist ideal< Unfettered, unrestricted access to abortion. That's where the fault lies you refuse to accept it.

Something like this has lots of but for causes. If the state had inspected, it probably would have been stopped earlier. If Medicaid paid for early abortions, there would have been little to no demand for Gosnell's "services." If we had universal healthcare and abortions were available in every hospital for little to no charge, nobody would have walked into Gosnell's clinic. If Obamacare's requirement that contraception be provided at no cost had been in effect, a number of the women might never have become pregnant in the first place.

If any of those things had been different, the horror might never have happened. To prevent it from happening again, we can take a number of steps:

1. Inspect facilities that provide abortions regularly, applying the same regulations as those applicable to outpatient facilities.
2. Provide federal funding for abortion to poor women.
3. Work to expand access to safe abortion facilities in hospitals and other settings.
4. Provide contraception as a part of health insurance at no additional cost to the recipient (already done!).

@Taxpayer: I used to think YOU were reasonable. You completely mischaracterize my position. I find that less than impressive. As far as changing the vocabulary, your use of "anti choice" in reference to me in no more than your own attempt to commit the sin you accuse me of.

That's bloody pathetic. And sanctimonious.

Treat abortion clinics like any other surgical center and enforce the regulations even handedly. Satisfied?

And just where the hell is it that you are willing to compromise? Let's here YOUR compromise position, Taxpayer. Or why don't you just drop your façade and admit you aren't really interested in any compromise.

I don't mine being called "anti-choice" if you don't mind being called "pro-baby killing". After all, the dictionary (see two cites above) says fetuses are babies.

If you'd rather keep it civil, you can call me pro-life. Otherwise, you get it in the neck, and I'm accurate, too. Blank Frank will agree with me.

"That is going on with the Gosnell freakout. It wasn’t reasonable to expect there to be a lot of coverage of this story at this time. Journalism, as the attackers know, is an industry that runs on newness. There’s no real developments in Gosnell case. The facts being presented at trial were in the grand jury report. Anti-choicers knew that feminist journalists and most of the mainstream media would cover the verdict, likely in-depth, because we covered the arrest and that’s the next stage in the story where new information would come out. In other words, it’s very much like yelling at a person for not being home at 5:05 when you know that they don’t leave work until 5:00 and it’s a 30 minute commute home. Antis are dismissing the coverage of the past when the story broke, claiming it doesn’t count, and trying to pre-empt the coverage they know that’s coming with the verdict by fussing right now. It’s like screaming at the weatherman for not doing stories on blizzards even though it’s fall. That’s a form of gaslighting, and it’s sleazy, dishonest behavior."

"I'm still waiting for someone to intelligently explain to me why putting obstacles in the path of women seeking safe early abortions will prevent horrors like the Gosnell case." - I'm waiting for someone to tell me how a doctor, or any human being, could do what Gosnell did. Also, Planned Parenthood will take this cases and I'm sure Philly has a PP abortion clinic

WSJ and NRO also report on how "legitmate" abortion clinics that wouldn't perform late term abortions referred mothers to this guy to perform those abortions. Real stand up guys running those clinics, huh?

I wanted to get this posted in case some idiot starts screaming for evidence.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
More about Eric Zorn

Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.